Release Notes 2.1

Product name
AVR32 Studio
Release version
2.1.0
Release date
2008-12-17

Contents

Overview

AVR®32 Studio is an integrated development environment for writing, debugging and deploying AVR32 applications. AVR32 Studio is distributed by Atmel® free of charge, and runs on both Windows® and Linux®. AVR32 Studio is Built on Eclipse™, enabling integration with third party plugins for increased functionality.

News

AVR32 Studio 2.1 is a minor upgrade from 2.0 series containing bug fixes, general improvements and new features.

New Features

  • Preliminary support for AT32UC3A3xxxx devices and the AT32AP7200 has been added.
  • The AVR Dragon is now supported for programming of AT32UC3 devices.
  • A debug launch will now be faster during programming of AT32UC3 devices if the target has external clocking enabled.
  • It is now possible to compare project files with the software framework implementation if available. Right click on the file and select Compare With > Reference Implementation.
  • Serial communication support has been added to the terminal view.
  • JTAG daisy-chaining with JTAGICE mkII is now supported (requires updated firmware).
  • It is now possible to create static libraries for standalone targets.
  • New and improved Linux launch feature. Linux projects now require Linux hosts to be built and debugged.
  • The new STK1000 daughter boards STK1005 (for AT32AP7200) and STK006 (for AT32AP7000) are now supported.
  • Support for the EVK1104 evaluation kit (for AT32UC3A3xxxx).
  • More compiler and linker optimization options now available in the project properties.
  • A new device selector for STK600 which lets you browse routing and socket cards has been added.
  • Updated AVR32 Software Framework for UC3A, UC3B and AP7000 devices (UC3A ES (RevE) 1.2.2ES, UC3A 1.4.0, UC3B ES (RevB) 1.2.2ES, UC3B 1.4.0, AP7000 1.0.0). Refer to software framework release notes for details.
  • New target menu to program AT32UC3 devices USB DFU bootloader.
  • Various improvements to the firmware upgrade functionality, including STK600 support.
  • It is now possible to suppress programming of the target when configuring a debug session.

Notable Bugs Fixed

Bug #6427
When a UC3 device was programmed with a bootloader that was protected with the BOOTPROT fuse, the device had to be erased with the chip erase command to be able to reprogram it. There is now an option in the launch configuration to perform a JTAG Chip Erase prior to programming.
Bug #7538
It was not possible to access voltages or frequencies in a target's Adapter tab before the Board tab has been configured properly. The target management view has been improved upon. It is now sufficient to select a debugger/programmer.
Bug #6986
The correct number of GPIO ports for each device is now displayed in the AVR32 Registers view.
Bug #8298
Pressing F3 on preprocessor macros will now open the header file where the macro is defined.
Bug #4948
Assembler files may now be named with the .S suffix, causing proper preprocessor expansion prior to assembling.
Bug #7820
When building projects that use make, the Problems view would contain a warning about not being able to launch the external scanner info generator. This has now been fixed by using the "AVR32/GNU C per project scanner info profile" by default.
Bug #8022
When importing projects created with AVR32 Studio 1.0, sometimes include paths would disappear from the settings. This is now fixed.
Bug #8926
The environment check now correctly detects binutils (as and nm) version 2.18.
Bug #7852
The appropriate ELF parser is now used for managed projects, enabling the "binary editor" for executables.
Bug #8116
Some example projects for UC3A would be built for architecture revision 1. These are now corrected.
Bug #8160
Building a project using the native toolchain (i.e for Windows or Linux on x86) no longer causes NullPointerException errors.
Bug #9055
Fixed a missing header file for the project template for EVK1101 (non-ES).

Known Issues

Bug #5867
The contents of addresses near a memory boundary, such as the end of SRAM, will not render properly in the memory view.
Bug #5716
Stepping over a line of source code that results in a large amount of machine instructions to be executed (typically empty for or while loops used for delays) will cause AVR32 Studio to be unresponsive. To regain control, terminate the launch. To step over such code line, use breakpoints and the resume (F8) function.
Bug #7099
The launch configuration setting "Verify memory after programming" will not be effective for debug launches.
Bug #7658
It is not possible to stop the debugger at the reset vector (usually the location of the _start() function) by entering the reset vector address in the 'Stop on startup at' field in the launch configuration's Debugger page. A workaround is to stop on the next instruction or function being called, for instance _stext().
Bug #5813
The dynamic help for the AVR32 specific views is incomplete or in some cases missing.
Bug #7370
The Includes folder for projects will only display includes for the Debug configuration.
Bug #7596
The contents of the Disassembly view may be displayed non-sequential depending on the output of the compiler. Typically, the presentation of for-loops or optimized code may be unfamiliar to some users.
Bug #7707
It is not possible to use redirection in Pre-build or Post-build steps. A workaround is to create an external command (i.e a .bat file) that performs the necessary redirection.
Bug #7280
If a breakpoint and a tracepoint is located on the same source line it is not possible to open the breakpoint's properties from the context (right-click) menu. In such cases, access the breakpoint from the Breakpoints view.
Bug #7560
The NanoTrace option Break on application buffer access does not work.
Bug #7756
The source code presented in the Trace Data view may be incorrect in some cases. Use the Disassembly or Mixed formats instead.

System Requirements

AVR32 Studio is supported under the following configurations.

Hardware requirements

  • Minimum processor Pentium 4, 1GHz
  • Minimum 512 MB RAM
  • Minimum 500 MB free disk space
  • Minimum screen resolution of 1024x768

AVR32 Studio has not been tested on computers with less resources, but may run satisfactorily depending on the number and size of projects and the user's patience.

Software requirements

  • Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista (x86 or x86-64)
  • Fedora™ 8 or 9 (x86 or x86-64), RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 or 5, Ubuntu Linux 7.10, 8.04 or 8.10 (x86 or x86-64), or SUSE® Linux 10.3 or 11.0 (x86 or x86-64)
  • Sun Java 2 Platform version 1.5 or later
  • Internet Explorer®, Mozilla®, or Firefox®

AVR32 Studio does not support Windows 98, NT or ME.

Downloading and Installing

The software can be found on the AVR32 Technical Library DVD, or downloaded from Atmel's website at http://www.atmel.com/products/avr32/ under the "Tools & Software" menu.

Upgrading from previous versions

It is not possible to upgrade to 2.1 from AVR32 Studio 2.0.x. Different versions of AVR32 Studio can co-exist without interference.

Workspaces containing projects built with earlier versions of AVR32 Studio should not be used directly with AVR32 Studio 2.1. It is recommended that a new workspace is created for 2.1, and that any projects from earlier workspaces are imported using the File > Import function.

IMPORTANT: Due to changes in the project types used in 2.0.2, Linux projects created with 2.0 must be converted in order to modify the toolchain settings. To convert a project, right-click the project in the Navigator view and select 'Convert To...'.

After successfully installing AVR32 Studio 2.1 (see below) and migrating to the new workspace, earlier versions (2.0.x or older) can be uninstalled using the "Add or Remove Programs" (Windows), and optionally deleting remaining files from the installation directory. On Linux, simply delete the installation directory. It is also recommended that the old AVR32 GNU Toolchain is uninstalled using "Add or Remove Programs" on Windows.

AVR32 Studio 2.1 has enabled automatic searching for updates when it is started. When the updates are found AVR32 Studio will display a dialog indicating that new updates are available. To upgrade, click the Yes button.

If the automatic update feature has been disabled, a manual search can be executed from the menu Help > Software Updates > Update.

Please read the What's New section for more information about changes since previous versions.

Installing on Windows

The AVR32 Studio installer can be downloaded from the website as noted above. After downloading, double-click the AVR32Studio-2.1-Setup.exe file to install. If you wish to specify the location where the AVR32 Studio software is installed, choose "Custom Installation". The installation software will install a Sun Java Runtime Environment on your computer if it is missing.

AVR32 Studio requires the AVR32 GNU Toolchain which contains the compiler, linker and utilities for programming the target. The latest AVR32 GNU Toolchain can be found at the same location as AVR32 Studio. Please install the AVR32 GNU Toolchain according to installation instructions given in the accompanying release notes.

Installing on Linux

On Linux, the AVR32 Studio IDE is distributed separately from the AVR32 GNU Toolchain which can be installed as RPM or Debian packages depending on the distribution. AVR32 Studio is available as a ZIP archive which can be extracted using the unzip utility.

IMPORTANT! The Java runtime environments shipped with many Linux distributions are not compatible with AVR32 Studio. A Java Runtime (or JDK) 1.5 or 1.6 is required. Consult your Linux distribution's documentation for instructions on installing Sun Java, or download it from Sun's website at http://java.sun.com/. Specifically, any reference to a Java version 1.7 indicates that an incompatible version is being used.

We recommend installing AVR32 Studio into a directory which is writable for the user(s). This simplifies the process of adding or updating the product. On a single-user machine, you can typically extract the AVR32 Studio ZIP file into your home directory. This creates an avr32studio directory containing the product files.

To run AVR32 Studio, execute the avr32studio program from the avr32studio directory. If you experience problems, make sure the correct java is being used by running java -version which should give output similarly to this:

java version "1.6.0_03"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_03-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0_03-b05, mixed mode, sharing)

Sun Java on Ubuntu

You can install Sun's Java on Ubuntu using the following commands from a shell:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre

RedHat Enterprise Linux 4

Note that you may need to set the environment variable MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME to the folder containing your Firefox install. e.g.

export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/firefox-1.0.4

or, if using a tcsh:

setenv MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME /usr/lib/firefox-1.0.4

in order for the welcome page to work.

Contact Information

For support on AVR32 Studio please contact mailto:avr32@atmel.com.

Users of AVR32 Studio are also welcome to discuss on the AVRFreaks website forum for AVR32 Software Tools.

Disclaimer and Credits

AVR32 Studio is distributed free of charge for the purpose of developing applications for AVR32 processors. Use for other purposes are not permitted; see the software license agreement for details. AVR32 Studio comes without any warranty.

© 2008 Atmel Corporation. All rights reserved. ATMEL, logo and combinations thereof, Everywhere You Are, AVR, AVR32, and others, are the registered trademarks or trademarks of Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Windows, Internet Explorer and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries. Built on Eclipse is a trademark of Eclipse Foundation, Inc. Sun and Java are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Mozilla and Firefox are registered trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation. Fedora is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc. SUSE is a trademark of Novell, Inc. Other terms and product names may be the trademarks of others.